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Carnage

Synopsis

A new comedy of no manners

In Brooklyn Bridge Park, eleven year old Zachary Cowan strikes his eleven year old classmate Ethan Longstreet across the face with a stick after an argument. Among the more serious of Ethan's injuries is a permanently missing tooth and the possibility of a second tooth also being lost. Their respective parents learn of the altercation through Ethan's parents questioning him about his injuries. The Longstreet parents invite the Cowan parents to their Brooklyn apartment to deal with the incident in a civilized manner. They are: Penelope Longstreet, whose idea it was to invite the Cowans, she whose priorities in life include human rights and justice; Michael Longstreet, who tries to be as accommodating as possible to retain civility in any situation; Nancy Cowan, a nervous and emotionally stressed woman; and Alan Cowan, who is married more to his work as evidenced by the attachment he has to his cell phone and taking work calls at the most inopportune times.

Language. It can be used to create and to destroy. For me that's what this film was all about.

We see four people who slowly strip away social conventions and eventually show their true selves, all because of the incessant need to talk, justify oneself and outwit others.

You cannot get around the fact that this is a play. One location, four actors and an insane amount of dialogue. For a film like this to work the acting has to be perfect. And it is. All four of them are absolutely fantastic, they portray the slow descent into social and moral ambiguity in such a way that, although the characters are somewhat stereotypical, you always get the feeling you're watching…

It astounds me - even more so on rewatch - that a film that, aside from the opening and closing shots, basically only takes place in the living room of an apartment (occasionally moving out to the hallway and brief moments throughout other parts of the home) with four people bickering at one another for 80 minutes, can be so intriguing and consistently entertaining. It's quite impressive. Roman Polanski's spot-on direction, the interesting dialogue and, of course, the excellent performances from the four actors themselves is what truly keeps this from ever becoming a monotonous mess of a film.

Plus, ever since first seeing Christoph Waltz in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds back in '09, I always look forward to and love seeing him in things. This is no exception.

This is truly one of the most violent movies that I have come across. Violence in the sense which considers human emotions. The true colour, savageness,guilt,anger,ego,superficial empathy, crookedness, disgust that human beings have as their innate nature are shown in full glory here. All the leads are excellent. Foster does too much sometimes. But waltz and Reilly truly steal the show. I am searching for a single word which best describes the movie. But I dont seem to get it. Oh wait I got it. Its CARNAGE.

Why can't they leave? From El Ángel Exterminador (1962), the answer has been implied. "It's absurd, but it's in their nature. They just can't!"

Based on Yasmina Raza's play titled Le Dieu du Carnage (God of Carnage), Polanski adapts wonderfully and with a truly underrated array of great, though theatrical performances (especially Foster, who gets a lot of unfair criticism) a roller-coaster intellectual exercise of how your typical middle-class veil of politeness and mutual caring is broken down when either your ethical, social or moral standards are challenged by external factors that you cannot avoid because you were unwillingly involved in them since the very beginning. In this case, such factor is the son of a family hitting the son…

I enjoyed this one. The performances are good, and the gradual breakdown in civility between the two couples featured due to an incident between their children is often hilarious. Plus it's worth seeing for Christoph Waltz alone.

Man I just love this movie, I really do. Star studded cast , and the acting was just like we associate with these classy actors. The plot of the movie was very interesting , settings and background was great and how these actors played out their roles , their characters was just terrific.They made this ordinary story line a masterpiece with all this Every scene was relevant. Hilarious to the core.

I recommend this to everyone , you guys will enjoy it. Not that long too, just over an hour.

Tight, short and kind of funny... "Carnage" is what happens when you get four actors in the same room, give them a script and roll camera. Being a very literal adaptation of what I think is a one-act play, "Carnage" is more of a character study or a thinly veiled cautionary tale, rather than a story with character arcs, plots and all that good stuff. It can really be summed up in one sentence, but it does not imply that the film is not worth watching. On the contrary, the acting alone and the comedy weaved in between the lines makes "Carnage" a very brisk and interesting watch.

I've found a Polanski that I unreservedly like. Yay me! Good dialogue from characters that round out and unfold very well as the story unfolds. Carnage's roots as a play are fairly obvious: the action never gets more than a few feet out of the one couple's apartment and it's all talk, talk talk. Check that, the film opens and closes in the park with no dialogue. The film has a brain and a point and sums it all up nicely with a hamster- or is it a gerbil? Needless to say, the acting is all quite good.

This is the first film of my rewatch month that I might actually like less on my second viewing. I still love Carnage, but I feel less passionate towards the adaptation of a play this time around. This whole film feels like it could have entire stayed a play and it would have worked much more efficiently.

That being said, the acting is near perfect and it really brings out some of the more intense moments in the film. It's nice and short and doesn't needlessly throw in any bloat garbage. The pace is steady building with subtle jabs leading to a violent confrontation. I'm still loving Carnage, but I think I would much rather see it as a play than a film.